


un lugar en el mundo

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bilingual Bonus, Coulson and Daisy are accidentally perfect for each other, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Future Fic, Romance, Skye | Daisy Johnson-centric, Superhero Registration Act, just in case, not Lincoln Campbell friendly, sorry about that :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6294850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy falls in love with his voice first.</p>
<p>(Post-3x12 fluffy feelings)</p>
            </blockquote>





	un lugar en el mundo

**one**

She fell in love with his voice.

She didn’t intend to.

She’s restless. She goes to the comms room to get an update on the Taiwan mission - last she knew they were all safe, including Talbot’s son, and on route home. Home, yeah. Despite how much more like home this should feel today, specially today, Daisy is still struggling with that.

In the meantime she checks the data from the symposium. She would have wanted to go in person - she is no leader or anything, but she’s still pissed at the No Aliens rule; anyway they’re not aliens.

The reaction to Inhumans is what she expected, but she’s more affected than she thought she’d be. She guesses one thing it’s knowing people out there think of you as something less than human and another is hearing the actual words, listening to some stranger talk about her comparing her with nuclear weapons.

They might be right, in the end. That’s what the Kree created them for. They were supposed to be the Kree’s nuclear reserve. Maybe Lincoln is right too, they’re a disease to be cured. She only knows what she feels - and he did go to medical school, after all. What does she know.

Except.

Coulson saying they are not a disease.

They’re just trying to find their place in the world, he had said.

An opportunity for compassion, he said, too.

She’s a bit surprised at his tone. He’s normally a lot more conciliatory when he talks about Inhumans with the team. In the symposium he practically says everything she would have wanted to say to these people herself - except she wouldn’t have been able to, because she’d be too angry to say something that makes sense. She doesn’t want to. Be angry. She wants to think things coldly and figure out what’s best for people like her. She doesn’t want to fight with people who are supposed to be on her side, she doesn’t want to resent Bobbi for her pragmatism or Lincoln for not accepting himself. But she can’t. She feels all messed up these days. Inside her she feels like that moment when you clench your fist so hard and dig your nails into your palm so deep that you feel yourself drawing blood. 

Daisy is still reviewing the materials when Coulson arrives.

Even though he is the one walking into the room he’s the one getting slightly startled by her presence. He obviously didn’t think anyone would be waiting for the team to get back. No one else is. They are alone and the place is so quiet it almost feels like they are the only two people in the world.

“You should be sleeping,” he says and it’s soft and he looks troubled, like usual, even though he was right about Talbot and Creel. Nothing was achieved at the symposium (Daisy hates the world, makes her feel like she’s an specimen to be studied, the word makes something crawl under her skin), except getting some more people to hate SHIELD.

Daisy feels bad about not being in bed, actually, about having slipped out of Lincoln’s room without saying a word practically minutes after he fell asleep, she feels bad about liking the idea of coming here to get some work done than staying in his bed.

She can’t tell Coulson this.

“Did Talbot and George get home alright?”

Coulson nods. “He won’t remember anything.”

“Good.”

“What are you doing here?”

Daisy takes off her earphones.

“I wanted to check the files from the symposium, in case you guys missed something,” she explains.

Coulson makes a weird face, like suddenly he looks a lot paler.

“What?”

“You shouldn’t probably…” he says. “Some things said at the meeting.”

Oh. He was worried about _that_.

“It’s nothing I couldn’t imagine they’d say,” she shrugs. “Nothing Fox News is not saying. Well, Fox News uses uglier words.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. There’s a hint of impotence in his voice. Daisy wants to tell him that hey, if he feels powerless triple that and that’s how _she_ feels.

“I did like you saying that we’re human with a _little bit extra_.”

He smiles a bit at that, but deflecting, like he’s a bit embarrassed she heard. He shouldn’t be.

“Did you mean that?” she asks. She needs a bit of reassurance tonight. She wouldn’t normally be this… needy, she guesses. “I mean the part about us not being a disease.”

“You know I meant it,” Coulson says quietly.

She considers him for a moment, holding his gaze. She has the feeling he’s never been this close and far to her at the same time. He can’t know how much she’s doubting everything she knows about herself, tonight. Or how much it means that he said that. Daisy herself doesn’t quite get why it means so much - it’s not like he’s Inhuman, and he didn’t go to medical school either (hell, he didn’t even finish the first semester in college, he told her). He’s just Coulson.

“Okay,” she says.

He touches her elbow for a second.

“We’re leaving in a couple of hours, you should get some sleep,” he tells her.

He’s right.

She goes back to her bunk. 

She knows she should probably go back to Lincoln’s (he is going away to the Cocoon in a couple of hours) but she ends up walking to her own room anyway. Her own bed.

 

**two**

“Where to first?” he asks, carrying a couple of the bags for her.

Good question. Not every corner of the Inhuman world would welcome her, that’s for sure. 

“Bogotá,” she says. “I need to know Yo-Yo is okay first.”

Coulson nods. He looks bashful, painfully apologetic. That’s good. But still it won’t make up for it. Daisy is not sure anything will. (Not in her eyes, in _his_.)

But she doesn’t feel like pitying Coulson right now. She is the one being hunted. Her people are the ones being threatened with extensive vaccination to prevent any more cases of the “illness”.

“Who knew trusting the President of the United States was a bad move?” Coulson says, trying to lighten the moment.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to…” she fidgets, restless, taking the bags from Coulson’s hand a bit too aggressively. “You tried to protect both sides. That’s what SHIELD should do. It just didn’t pay off.”

“I should have been on your side,” he says, quietly, handing her the second bag.

Daisy feels the temptation to say something to make him feel better (that’s what she does, isn’t it), tell him it’s not his fault. But she thinks if anyone in the world can understand her not feeling like it, it’s Coulson. If anyone in the world understands and won’t leave or stop loving her because of it. She’s still afraid of all those things, but a little less with Coulson. A lot less.

“I don’t expect trouble in Colombia but I’d appreciate some backup,” she says.

“I’ll tell Mack and May to be in touch.”

“Thanks,” she says. “I’ll be back soon.”

She wants to promise him that but she is not sure herself.

Coulson makes a movement like he wants to stop her from walking into the Quinjet, but he doesn’t quite grab her arm. The attempted gesture is enough to stop Daisy in her tracks and make her turn around.

“This is my fault,” Coulson tells her.

Again something familiar claws inside of her, telling her to say something to placate Coulson’s guilt. But she fights it.

“Yes, it is,” she says, but she’s soft and she gives him a tiny smile and she pulls him into a hug afterwards.

His arms are loose around her back, like he’s afraid of overstepping some invisible boundary between them. It’s funny, Daisy thinks, pressing a smile against the collar of his shirt, she always wishes Coulson would hug her harder.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into her hair.

“I know,” Daisy tells him.

 

**three**

She waves at Yo-Yo from the other side of the warehouse, while Coulson is still talking to her on the phone.

“You sure this is a secure line?” she asks. Since she’s no longer there to monitor comms. That makes her a bit nervous.

“This triple-encrypted line, yeah, I’m sure.”

“Sorry, I’m a little-”

“Paranoid?” he finishes, amused. “I’m glad you’re still getting your latte fix out there. Wherever out there is.”

He sounds frustrated by it. Or more like worried. She knows it’s not ideal, and he’d rather know where she is. But they could use that information against Coulson as well as against her. Daisy won’t risk it. 

At least they are able to call each other whenever they need (or want, as it turns out, it doesn’t have to be out of necessity, sometimes she just phones Coulson to tell him ridiculous, irrelevant stuff, or to hear the latest supplies crisis from him and how that affects the quality of the meals in the base and how sometimes Coulson tries to make her feel like that is the worst thing about the war, just to cheer her up). They couldn’t, for months.

“We’ve moved Creel to a secure location,“ Coulson tells her. “Just in case.”

“Good.”

“Some agents have abandoned ship, but most of them are staying in the base, on your side.”

“That’s good,” she says. “Just make sure they know the risks of helping Inhumans. The law right-”

“They know,” Coulson assures her, sounding a bit amused with her impatience. “I made sure of that.”

“I’m sorry, I have to hang up,” she says. “Our two minutes are up.”

She thinks she hears him sigh across the line, but maybe it’s that she’s mentally sighing too.

“Okay, I’ll call you back in a couple of days,” Coulson says.

Daisy knows that means he’ll call her tomorrow unless she tells him otherwise. She’s not sure why but that makes her smile. 

“Stay safe, Director,” she tells him.

He lets out an ugly chuckle.

“I’m safe,” Coulson says. “You’re the one who should feel safe enough to come home.”

He hangs up after that, the word _home_ lingering between them like it could connect them when they’re many miles away.

Yo-Yo reaches her.

“¿El Director?”

“Yes,” Daisy tells her. “Things are moving on their end, too.”

“Ya es hora,” the other woman mutters, stretching her arms painfully.

Daisy knows she has been out there on a mission since five in the morning.

“Tired?” she asks. Yo-Yo makes a face. Daisy doesn’t need translation for that. “I’ll get us something cold.”

Daisy brings back a couple of beer - one without alcohol for Yo-Yo. Daisy has learned to call a beer _una pola_ by now, that’s how long they have been hanging out.

She looks at the satellite phone, still on top of a crate. Yo-Yo notices the strange expression she has on her face.

“¿Echas de menos el Playground? Home-sick?” she asks.

Daisy smiles. “A little bit.”

She wasn’t thinking about the Playground. She was thinking about how nice it was hearing Coulson’s voice but how much she was missing his face. Even the wrinkles on his forehead when he’s all worried and doesn’t want to ask for help. She misses those too.

They sit together in one corner of the warehouse. It’s dusty and cold and it’s not home but at least Elena is with her.

After a moment in silence Yo-Yo rolls her eyes at her and elbows her softly on the ribs.

“¿Qué pasa?”

Daisy sighs a little.

“I wonder if this what I’m supposed to be doing,” she says.

Yo-Yo grabs her knee and shakes her.

“Yes, yes!” she says. “Fight the government! Fight the power!”

Daisy laughs. Yeah, she’s right. That’s what she’s supposed to be doing. At least right now. She can figure the rest later. When she gets home.

“Which by the way,” Daisy says, gesturing towards the chests full of weapons Yo-Yo had managed to get back from the anti-Inhuman faction. “Nice job.”

Yo-Yo smiles, toasting. “Años interceptando los carros de las Contras, buena práctica.”

Daisy doesn’t quite get that one. She’s still learning Spanish. Something about Yo-Yo’s experience stealing weapons from the paramilitary. Well, there’s a reason Yo-Yo is in charge of this operation.

“I should be practicing English, _American_ ,” Yo-Yo says, resolved. That’s why Daisy wanted to know Spanish too, so that Yo-Yo wouldn’t feel so pressured to learn English, or feel like she was the only one making an effort. “So let me practice. Daisy: do not worry. We’ll get you back to your family.”

“My familia, yes,” Daisy says. She feels bad for making Yo-Yo worry about her being sad in the middle of a war. “Thank you. I just… I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing. I guess I’m still looking for my place in the world.”

“Tu lugar en el mundo,” Yo-Yo says, the roles reversed.

“Yeah, my _lugar en el mundo_.”

 

**four**

He’s with her when she erases the data.

“Are you sure?” she asks, knowing it’s a big decision and even though Coulson said it was completely hers and the rest of the Inhumans’, she would like to check he’s still okay with the call she made..

Coulson nods.

“You’re right, it’s not safe with anyone other than the Inhumans,” he says. “I’d love to tell you SHIELD can keep something like that safe but the last time I trusted the system it turned out I was working for Hydra all along.”

She pats his back jokingly for a moment.

“This is the right thing to do,” Daisy tells him.

“I agree.”

Daisy knows the information on a cure can’t be completely destroyed - after all it had already helped both Andrew and Lincoln, and she knows it could help others in the future. But the world is not a place she can trust right now.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to destroy the hard drives,” she says. “I’ll tell the geek squad how.”

She’s not in the mood of destroying more computers herself. She had more than her share of that when they had to infiltrate government facilities to erase any data on the tentative “Inhuman cure” (which, thankfully, no one on the government’s side had been able to develop as far as Simmons had).

“I’m assuming it involves acid?” Coulson jokes, watching as she types away destruction.

“Oh lots of acid,” she says.

It takes her a couple of hours to finish the task. Coulson stays close by, providing coffee and asking technical questions. He is not entirely a neophyte when it comes to computers but this is obviously too advanced for him. She likes how he seems to appreciate her expertise.

“We’re lucky you’re on top of this,” he says. “Even before the forced downsizing of SHIELD,” Daisy likes that euphemism, it’s funny. “Even before that i don’t we had an expert of your caliber.”

“Come on, Director, you’re going to make this high school dropout blush.”

“I mean,” he looks a bit embarrassed. “Thank you.”

She knows he’s probably not thanking her for destroying the lab’s computers from the inside out. Maybe he’s thanking her for coming back. Maybe he’s thanking her for _staying_.

All those months away she kept thinking about what he said in Taiwan. About Inhumans trying to find their place in the world.

Daisy wonders if she’s already found it.

When she’s finished it’s almost midday, though it feels more like the middle of the night. Only essential personnel around the base these days, and holidays for most of the team, after all they have been through.

“What’s the plan now?” Coulson asks her.

“Keep a couple of copies in safe places,” Daisy says. “Only Yo-Yo and I know the location and it can only be accessed through our bio data, kind of like your Fury’s Toolbox. In case something happens to either of us. Something like this… it can still help many of our people.”

He walks her to the garage.

“I’ll make sure to disconnect the navigation logs, no one on this end will know where you’re going.”

“I appreciate that,” Daisy tells him. “I should be back in a few hours.”

It seems like she’s coming and going all the time since she returned. A lot of clean up to do, a lot of people to go see and reassure them it’s okay to come out of hiding. She never imagined winning would be this much work.

Coulson seems to be thinking the same, that she’s _leaving_ too much these days, because he looks strangely apprehensive as he watches her get into the Quinjet again. Even though this time he knows she’s coming back.

Daisy matches his glance.

“I know it’ll be late but when I come back… do you want to have a drink me?” she asks, trying to sound casual.

Coulson doesn’t have to reply, she can see it in his expression, but it still feels really nice when he says “Yes”.

 

**five**

Coulson breaks out the best scotch left in the base when she comes back. He talks about how there hasn’t been many opportunities to celebrate like this in a long time and Daisy feels truly home for the first time since this whole anti-Inhuman crusade ended.

She sits on the desk, brushing her fingertip against the rim of her glass.

“Was there any problems with the op?” Coulson asks, noticing her distraction.

“No, not, it went great,” she replies. That’s the problem. “It felt good, you know? Taking responsibility for my people like that.”

He goes and sits by her side, pushing some files and a tiny model of Lola aside.

“But…?”

She brings the glass to her lips, smiling at annoyed smile at Coulson.

“But,” she says. “I wish I could do more.”

He nods. There were times in which Coulson would have said “don’t push yourself” or “you have done enough” to cheer her up. Daisy is not in need of cheering up right now. Not even in need of understanding (there are things Coulson will never be able to understand). She’s fine right now. But the company? Now, that’s nice.

They continue drinking in silence. It’s almost palpable, how few people there are in the base,and how the whole place seems to be on the mend. It makes Daisy feel like somehow she and Coulson have been left stranded in here. It makes her speak in lower tones, for some reason.

“I think I now know how my mother did it,” she says, thinking out loud.

“What do you mean?”

This is something that she has been thinking about all the way back here, but she was afraid it wouldn’t sound right.

“I didn’t understand how, before Hydra found her, when she was a good guy, my mom was willing to take lives with her powers to live on,” she says. “I never understood how she could do that. Now I wish I had a couple more lifetimes to help out my people, you know?”

She takes a sip, hoping that’s not too much of a horrible thing to say and that Coulson is not horrified. When she lifts her eyes again he doesn’t seem to be. He’s half turned towards her, knee against her leg, and looking at her like he was expecting her to say something of the sort.

He touches her elbow for a moment.

“You’ll figure a way,” he tells her. “ _Your own_ way.”

Daisy nods, putting her drink down.

“Yeah, I will,” she says, taking Coulson’s glass from his hand and setting it aside too.

He looks at her with curiosity, not alarm, so Daisy feels bold enough to stand up and walk up to face him, pressing the palms of her hands against his chest and bringing her mouth against his.

She means for it to be a gentle half-touch (she’s not sure what Coulson will feel about it, she’s sure that even if he turns her down he won’t hurt her in the process) but Coulson immediately opens his mouth under her with a surprised _oh_ and suddenly there’s tongue against tongue and Daisy’s hands move up to his neck, trying to pull him towards her or tug herself against him, her breasts pressed against him, and the way Coulson opens his legs apart to give her access doing surprising things to Daisy, things that make her feel dangerously close to happy, and dangerously close to not caring about how her whole life tells her she’s not supposed to feel this good.

Daisy breaks the kiss (though she doesn’t pull back enough that Coulson’s hands, suddenly gone to her waist, aren’t still holding her lightly), suddenly embarrassed - not for being forthcoming, she’s an expert, embarrassed because she did it all selfishly, for herself.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“What the hell are you apologizing for?” he says, smiling and panting.

Daisy chuckles, delighted by the absurdity of the moment, by the way Coulson’s hand have moved to her back now, pressing to feel the curve of her spine.

“I have no idea,” she confesses.

She kisses him again.

Maybe his reply doesn’t matter that much. It used to be enough, being loved. It used to be the goal. Daisy’s changed. She wants to love now. Coulson seems to tremble with delight under her, inquiring hands softly exploring the shape of Daisy’s back, her shoulders, her neck.

“Since when…?” he asks softly, caressing the side of Daisy’s face. She’s fascinated by the gesture, but seeing this intimate and tender version of the man she thought she knew so well. She almost forgets the question.

He couldn’t have asked a more difficult question. Coulson had sort of always been the thing for Daisy, the only person in her life that she was scared to lose but never because she did something wrong, not in a long time, anyway. Romantic love was something she had to talk herself into, before. Not something as easy and selfish as what she felt for Coulson. It couldn’t be -

“The files from the symposium,” she says, remembering the night she had felt it for the first time, the sprinkle of possibility, even if only by comparison. “When you said Inhumans were not diseased. Something about your voice then… I think that’s when it started to change, for me.”

Coulson nods a bit, brushing his nose against her cheek, touching his lips only slightly against Daisy’s mouth.

“You?” she asks.

He smiles. “I’m not sure I knew things had changed until a few seconds ago. Thank you.”

She laughs again. “ _Thank you_?”

Coulson runs his fingers through her hair, pressing softly against her skull.

“Yes, thank you,” he repeats, kissing her jaw. “I might have never known… thank you for doing this.”

He sounds like it would have been such a waste, like he’s genuinely saddened by the idea that they might have never done something like this, in another alternative universe.

Coulson kisses her and keeps kissing her and yes, it tastes like gratitude (and okay, a bit like scotch).

 

**six**

She insisted on going to her bunk, and Coulson followed, fingers threaded together.

It was a good idea, because she likes waking up after a couple of minutes of dozing off and waking up in her own bed, with her things around her. She likes having Coulson’s naked body between _her_ sheets too. She doesn’t know how to explain it, the comfort it gives her, the idea of having him, knowing she doesn’t have to do anything to keep him, she just have to want it. She likes how Coulson’s chest fits against her back, his chest hair tickling her with its softness when she moves, his lack of modesty when he’s with her, the way his cock is pressed against the small of her back more half-soft than half-hard, the way he has one leg lazily thrown over hers, his arm around her, fingers resting over her belly. It makes Daisy feel impatient to touch him again, to have him again. Her heart pounds with hunger, then she remembers she has time - they have time. And god, she is freaking exhausted.

She shifts on the mattress, alarming Coulson a bit.

“Is everything all right? Do you want me to leave? I could….”

No, she doesn’t want him to leave. And she doesn’t want to slip out when he’s asleep. 

“No, it’s okay,” she tells him, grabbing his left hand from under the pillow and placing it over her own hand.

“Does it bother you?” he asks. After what they have done tonight it would be strange for him to think Daisy has any problem with his prosthetic, but she knows better than to assume that sort of this. She’s still there, as well, something in the back of her mind asking if Coulson is put off by her not being human even as he held her in his arms and kissed her and fucked her.

“No, it feels good,” she tells him. It doesn’t feel like a “real” hand, of course. But it’s Coulson’s, and that’s how it feels like. His. It feels good. She scrapes her nails across the palm for a moment. “Can you feel that?”

“I can feel that,” he tells her.

She makes a fist around his knuckles, entwining their fingers together.

“Do you want to…? We could go again,” she offers.

Coulson kisses the curve of her shoulderblade.

“Aren’t you tired?” he asks. “After your mission and everything.”

“Yeah, I’m really tired but-”

“Then it’s okay,” he says, kissing the same spot again, then moving his mouth along her nape. “Let’s just sleep.”

Daisy knows there’s probably something wrong with her that she’s touched and glad at her offer of sex being rejected, but she turns her face towards Coulson and presses a long kiss into the crook of his elbow.

“Let’s just sleep,” she repeats his words in a whisper, smiling to herself.

She settles against him, her cheek on the soft inside of his arm.

Coulson holds her against him. Close. Just like she had always wanted him to.

This is where she’s supposed to be.


End file.
